Random Bits of Detritus

My Mom came to visit last month and it suddenly dawned on her that my house had way more storage space than hers (thanks Dad) so she has been systematically sending me packages of "goodies."   By "goodies" I mean random crap from my high school days thrown in a box.  One week it was my old cheerleading uniforms, but also included was my old, used, dirty cheerleading tights.  One week it was old t-shirts and old cassettes I had recorded music on (seeing as I don't own a tape deck and I-Tunes has been invented, I really didn't need those).  This last box was the kicker though.  In it was my beautiful wedding dress...and a box of garbage.  Literally.

This box had old snapple lids, a fast food soda lid, old receipts, decade old candy, and notes to and from my first boyfriend.  All things that could have been thrown away and not shipped across the country.  Although, honestly, I'm not sure I want my mom going through my old notes...and it does kind of make it an adventure when I open the box.  It is like the backpack left at the post office.  It could hold $1,000,000 in cash, or a bomb.  Good surprise or bad surprise?  All you can do is open it and hope the past doesn't blow up too much in your face.

On a totally different note:

Livi is only allowed to have a binkie when she is in her bed.  This has been hard for her, but normally she is pretty good about it.  Today she had the catch 22 of wanting her binkie but wanting to be with people.  She sat in her bed screaming, refusing to come out because that would mean no binkie, but not wanting to be in her room alone.  Eric asked Ethan to "go in and see what Livi needs."  Ethan took the request to heart:

Visiting Lincoln Part 1

 Eric had his last meeting for his "young professional lawyers the BAR wants for leadership, who want to do other stuff good too" in Lincoln, and I thought since it was the last time (I think) someone would pay us to drive out to Lincoln we should take everyone along and have a family vacation.  Most people don't think of Lincoln as a great vacation spot, but coming from Scottsbluff where the most exciting thing is the annual corn husking competition, if is a veritable paradise.

The first day Eric had meetings so the kids and I were on our own for entertainment.  Everyone wanted to go to the Children's Museum, but it didn't open first thing, so we went to Barnes and Noble, and the mall first.  This was the "Merry-Go-Round-Of-Death" that was at the mall.

notice Ethan with his Starbucks hot chocolate!  He is my true chocolate conisuer.

I have never been on one that sped up and stayed quite so fast, lasted so long, and took forever to slow back down.  Basically in the first 10 seconds I was trying to keep down my breakfast, and that lasted another 400 minutes. 

At the Children's Museum (which is most definitely the coolest one we have ever been to) we were a little disappointed that the water section was being remodeled, but still managed to spend 4.5 hours playing with: prairie dog tunnels,

 face paint

Ella wanted me to do it too.  We were fairies.

puppet shows,

fighting over stage sounds,

 large chairs,

small grocery stores,

and of course the space area.

I know they are space suits, but every time I see this I think "We are the knights who say 'Ni'!"

We finally finished up and went over to meet Eric.  His meeting was right across from the state capital, so we spent a few minutes seeing where Eric has gone to argue in front of the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

Supreme Court

Seeing the Court of Appeals (kind of)

Where the state legislature meets

On the outside of the building all the county names are inscribed, but we had never managed to find ours.  Ethan had sharp eyes this time and we managed to find it while we walked around the grounds.

Raccoon Meet Casey, Casey Meet Raccoon

It is a big family joke that our dog (my parents dog), Casey, is a little on the... rotund side. Okay, the dog is just plain obese. Everyone can see it, everyone but my dad. For some reason my dad seems to think that Casey is just "fluffy." He is a golden retriever, so there is a fluff factor, but there is also the "belly fat bigger than my 3 year old" factor. If you ever watch a dog show you will see a fine specimen of a golden retriever. Times that by 2 and you will have how wide Casey is. Why is this important? It isn't, really, but when we went to the zoo we found Casey's soul mate:I wasn't sure if it really was a raccoon or a mutant raccoon/grizzly bear hybrid (the bottom half being the grizzly). You may think I am exaggerating, but in this picture he looks svelte compared to how he looked in real life! In fact as we walked through out the zoo I noticed a running theme. It seems our animals are all a little overfed. If they ever need a golden retriever I know one that will fit right in!

We also took the obligatory "how big is your wing span" pic: and to give you an idea how long we have been taking these (and how many I have now) here is our official first wing picture after we moved here: Yes, that is Ella! Ethan wouldn't do it for some reason.

Payback

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago, but Eric said I wasn't allowed to post it because he looked weird in it. Well yesterday Eric insinuated that me going out and mowing the lawn was equivalent fun to him going out and hunting (he also suggested taking the kids to the zoo and leaving me to clean the house was also comparable fun for me...WRONG). So now I feel no qualms about posting this photo (okay, not completely true, I did crop it so he wasn't really in it, but now I don't feel any qualms about posting the edited photo). Eric wont read this post for about a month and by then we will be laughing about the hissy fit I am currently throwing (okay, probably not).

Lots of lead up to just a random photo. I give to you: TONKS SLEEPING

No Baby Left Behind

Livi has rigged up a way to take her "baby" with her on adventures:

Going To Heck In An Easter Basket

Easter is probably the hardest holiday for me, weight wise. I LOVE Easter candy. Not just a 12 year old girl type of crush, but a full blown stalker, want to marry it, LOVE. I have zero self control when confronted with Mini Eggs. Marshmallow Peeps tremble in fear when they see my shadow. I have been known to hide Creme Eggs from the kids so I can have them all to myself once the kidos go to bed.

That being said, I have been really ridiculously good this Easter season. I didn't buy any candy ahead of time, even though they have been in stores since February. I resisted the siren song of the Easter isle at Walmart! At least I was good, until the Easter Bunny came. I even left a note that asked him to leave less candy than usual so I wouldn't be as tempted. He left movies, stickers, even lip gloss, but there was still enough candy for me to lose all the self control I had maintained in one chocolaty binge. I think I ate my weight in sugar yesterday.

Enough about me, here are some highlights:

The day before our ward had an Easter Egg Hunt at a members house. Another benefit to living in Nebraska is that people actually live on farms here. The house we went to had several acres and the Bishopric hid over 900 eggs. They had an under 3 category for the little kids and Livi seemed to have a theme to her egg picking.
Ella and Ethan, not being the most...aggressive...egg hunters only got a handful of eggs. They tended to hang back from the mass of kids that were running like dogs after a duck (which I have seen too often).
That night I was guilted into hosting a BBQ for the two girls (and their families) that I was accompanying on the piano for Easter (long story), so we had to hurry and dye eggs before everyone arrived. Ethan wanted something a little more than just color for his eggs and he was a little put out that we didn't have time (Eric told him he had to smile, but he snuck in his two cents).
Easter morning the Easter Bunny put out the traditional clues for a treasure hunt and then since it was only 23 degrees outside the egg hunt was in the living room. After church I remembered I hadn't taken any dress-up pictures so we headed outside where I took about a hundred photos only to realize once we got back in the house that I didn't have a memory card in my camera so we headed back out for an abbreviated retry. Livi was a little hyped up on sugar and tired of being good so these were the results:

I did get a few cute ones though. A big "Thank You" goes out to our neighbors for ruining a cute picture of Ethan and Livi by leaving their old, junky, non running truck right in front of our house because it is so unattractive that they don't want it parked in front of their house. No joke.

And here are a few, mostly boring, videos (Livi has some funny reactions):

Baby Chicks, Ducklings, Goslings, and a Dead Squirrel

When I went to help in Ella's class this morning I was asked by her teacher if I would want to come back in the afternoon and walk with the class to the local farm and ranch store to see the new baby chicks. Of course I was thrilled, and Livi and I came back to help with the walk.
All I can say is only in Nebraska can you go to the local hardware store and find multiply professional displays of the cutest baby chicks I have ever seen, but what the kids really enjoy is the dead squirrel on the side of the road